


Ab Urbe Condita

by Megkips



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Gen, Romulus and Remus got reversed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megkips/pseuds/Megkips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toto drums her fingers once, twice, three times, then frowns.  “Did anyone bother to tell you how Laem was founded?”</p><p>Alibaba nearly answers no, but the silence of his tablemates speak for him.  “Really,” Toto chides the rest of the table, “Of all the ones not to tell.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ab Urbe Condita

For all that Laem offers endless entertainments in the evening, Alibaba almost inevitably finds himself too exhausted to head out after training ends. There is bread and wine in the mess hall of the training grounds, and good company besides. He knows that to be true, as true as the fact that there is no better communal bonding experience than sitting with other gladiators and complaining of the day’s work. It is easy, natural even, and as he slides into his usual spot at dinner, a chorus of tired noises greet him over the din of the hall. There are easily one hundred people present in the white stuccoed room, all seated at wooden benches with wine and bread between them. The rest of dinner still had an hour to go before being served.

“Who did what today then?” he asks, hand immediately reaching for the wine jug. “I had a full day of shield drills and getting hit with sticks.”

“Lucky! I got stuck with fighting monsters like Garda all day!” Nero Germanicus groans, barely hiding the smile on her face. “I think they’re being bred for thicker hides.”

The bread basket passes to Alibaba, and he tears off a hunk. For all that the room reeks of sweat and musk, the warm, comforting smell of the bread manages to cut through the stench as if it isn’t there at all.

“Sword drills,” comes the usually cheerful voice of Lucius Pullo, now faint and far away.

“He only just stopped gasping for air,” Nero adds in pseudo-whisper. 

“I got stuck cleaning monster shit,” says Antonius Flavian, one of the new members of the school.

Livia, one of the Finialis kinsmen, snorts. “A punishment richly deserved, I might add.”

“No one can prove that I put the mouse there!”

“Except we all saw you do it!” Livia counters sharply, just before the table erupts in laughter.

“One on one with Master Shambal most of the day,” Toto says last of all, no sign of tiredness upon her. “And I thought we had agreed we would no longer speak of the mouse, lest someone overhear it.”

“Right, right,” Nero agrees, barely holding her laughter back. “But if we aren’t going to talk about that, what shall we talk about?”

“Well,” Antonious says, elongating the word. “There’s always discussion of past glories.” His eyes flicker around the table. “Assuming that we haven’t run out.”

“I’ve got no more,” Livia admits when Antonious’ eyes come to rest on her. “You’ve sucked every last one of them out of me.”

“And I’m out all of mine,” Alibaba adds quickly, before all eyes turn to him and he has to tell some other story about the old kings of Balbadd that aren’t nearly as exciting as everyone thinks they are.

“Hm,” Lucius Pullo takes a long sip of his wine, fingers drumming on the table thoughtfully. “What stories of ours haven’t you heard, Alibaba? I mean, I think we’ve been over Hector and his dumb brother, right?”

“Yeah,” Alibaba confirms, reaching for another hunk of bread. “I liked that one, actually. You also told me all the stories about the Magi of Delphos, I think.”

“All of them?” Lucius repeats. “About the band of two hundred and Parthia?”

“Yup.”

“The king candidate Roxana and her husband Alexandros, who conquered nearly all of the east?”

“Mmhmm.”

“The labours of the strongest man who was driven insane by another magi and had to repent?”

“Yeah, although you were drunk enough you kept repeating the same section over and over again.”

Lucius snorts into his wine cup. “Jeez, I think we are all out then.”

Toto drums her fingers once, twice, three times, then frowns. “Did anyone bother to tell you how Laem was founded?”

Alibaba nearly answers no, but the silence of his tablemates speak for him. “Really,” Toto chides the rest of the table, “of all the ones not to tell.”

“Then make up for our past errors,” Livia says with a smirk. “Come on, we all know the real reason we don’t tell it.”

“Why wouldn’t you--?” Alibaba begins, only for Lucius to cough in response.

“You’ll hear in a minute,” he explains. “Go on Toto. Tell the story..”

“Refill my cup first,” she commands, holding it out to receive more wine. Wordlessly, Lucius pours as requested, and Toto begins.

“Some seven hundred years ago, there were two brothers, Romulus and Remus. Their mother was Rhea, and she was supposedly given into some ancient cult that practiced perpetual virginity. She got pregnant--”

“--By her father!” Lucius calls out.

“No, don’t be gross; it was by one of the other king candidates at the time!” Nero corrects.

“Nu-uh, by one of the other magi!” Antonius offers

Toto pauses to offer Alibaba an exasperated look, the continues. “--by some means, and was supposed to be killed by the king of Alba. Her twins were condemned to death by exposure, like you’re supposed to do with bastards-- not that we always do, like Pullo here--”

“Hey!”

“--but the servant assigned to the task couldn’t go through with it. So instead, he put the twins in a small box and sent them down the river that runs through Laem. A few miles down, a passing woman found the box stuck in the reeds. That was Laem’s first magi, Lupa.”

“She got the name Lupa because she was raised by wolves, of course,” Livia adds. “Pass the wine please.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Lucius replies, passing the jug all the same. “It was because she was so fierce.”

“Nu-uh, it was just what her parents named her, don’t be an idiot,” Antonius corrects them both. “Could you pass the wine when you’re done refilling your cup, Livia?”

“What did she do with them?” Alibaba asks instead of addressing the on-going commentary.

“Well, obviously she raised them! I mean, she wasn’t going to leave them out to die. There wasn’t anyone on the other side of the river either, so she settled there. Other people began to build up on the hill she chose to make her house on, because they knew a great king would found a nation soon.”

Lucius groans miserably, nudging Toto under the table with his foot. “Come on, get to the good stuff!”

“Hey, this is archetypal, you have to lay it all out!” Livia snaps back. “This is worse than when I told my stories!”

“Bo-oring!” Antonius shouts, happy to agree with Lucius.

“Shut up!” Nero snaps.

“Get on with it!” Lucius says, raising his voice even louder.

“Piss and--” Toto starts, only to stop with the reprimand. “Fine. So, Lupa raises Romulus and Remus for sixteen years on the hill on the far side of the river. They’re both aware that their mother has been raising them only to pick one as king, and it comes to a head over rationing the grain supply for their side of the river.”

“No, they were just talking about their mom and the future--” Antoius tries to butt in.

Livia responds in kind by stomping on Antonious’ foot under the table and yelling over his squawk of pain. “--If you interrupt one more time, you’re not going to speak again!”

“Thank you,” Toto says. “Anyway, the nature of the argument differs, but the ultimate point is that knowing that one son would be picked as king of all this land and that the other wouldn’t inspired serious sibling rivalry, and the two began to try and out-do each other in earnest to win their mother’s approval. It went on for four years, all the while Lupa remained quiet and watched her adopted sons fight.”

Alibaba nods to show that he is listening. “Four?”

“Mm, four, which is an unlucky number in Laem. Anyway, in the fourth year, Romulus and Remus thought it wise to build a new building for hearing town arguments. Romulus wanted to put it down near the river, Remus wanted it on high ground. As so many sibling arguments do, it resulted in a fist fight. However, they were on high ground themselves, and depending on who is telling the story, Romulus either tripped and fell off the steep side of the hill they were on, Remus shoved him, a knife or other implement got involved or something else altogether. But regardless of how, Romulus died as an accidental fratricide. With only one brother left, Remus became Lupa’s king candidate, built that hall, and went on to start Laem in earnest.”

“And Romulus?”

“We honour him by telling the story and acknowledging that he too is a part of Laem, even if he never saw it in his own day,” Toto says, pausing to drain the full of her wine cup. 

“That’s not a great memorial,” Alibaba says, frowning. “Being remembered just for dying, and no one can even remember how it happened.”

“But it’s our story,” Nero says. “We could choose not to tell it at all and let Romulus’ name fall into obscurity, but we don’t.”

“Besides,” Lucius offers. “If Romulus had killed Remus instead, who knows what could’ve become of us. We might not even be here. Plus, if I’m being honest, the part of the story that Toto told isn’t even the good bit. It’s what Remus did afterwards that’s important anyway.”

“As I said,” Livia adds. “Archetypal. You have to talk about Romulus first because that’s step one of founding.”

Lucius rolls his eyes. “Oh, leave off with the mumbo jumbo about how to tell a story!”

“There’s more,” Toto says, watching Livia bristle and Nero slowly inch the bread knife away from Livia’s grip. “But I can continue tomorrow. You can see why telling it is a bit of a pain.”

Alibaba nods. “Why doesn’t everyone agree on the details though?”

“Is everything you told us about say, your dungeon adventure with Aladdin totally accurate?”

“As best as I can remember, yeah.”

“Nothing exaggerated?”

“Well,” Alibaba starts, only for Toto to grin at him. 

“Exactly. Give it a few hundred years and you’ll get a whole bunch of gladiators arguing over the colour of someone’s hair or something.”

“Won’t be mine,” Alibaba muses. “Probably Aladdin’s, because none of us know why it’s blue.”

“It’ll be a metaphor for something, obviously,” Nero butts in. “I’ll tell the next part tomorrow, and I promise that with the prologue out of the way, I shall make the next chapter one of--”

“Nero, go get more bread!” Lucius yells. “We’re finally out.”

“--One where I’m going to have five loaves before we even start,” Nero finishes with a laugh before excusing herself from the table.

“I’ll look forward to it!” Alibaba calls as she gets up from the table. A part of him wants to ask for the next part upon Nero’s return, but as he waits, Lucius changes the course of discussion entirely, asking, “Did anyone see the rosters for this weekend’s matches, by the way?”

Tomorrow will come soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> With recent scanlations [referring to Laem as Reim,](http://mangafox.me/manga/magi_the_labyrinth_of_magic/vTBD/c169/3.html) it became astoundingly obvious that the country's name is likely a nod to the [founding myth of Rome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_remus), just with Remus victorious instead of Romulus. For the sake of fandom consistency I chose to refer to it as Laem in this fic.
> 
> Ab urbe condita; anno urbis conditae. "From the founding of the city" (of Rome) - not unlike BCE/CE of the modern era.
> 
> [Stucco](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stucco) was extremely common in Rome.


End file.
